Samsung Isn’t Upgrading What Matters, Here's Why That Could Backfire

We unpack the fake S26 image leak saga, why we still cover rumors with rigorous context, and what truly changes for the S26 lineup. Real upgrades show up in Buds 4 Pro, Quick Share-to-AirDrop, and potentially the next Fold, not in slab phones stuck at 25W.

• Editorial transparency on AI-generated S26 “leaks”
• January S26 timing confirmed trends and lineup resets
• Why slim phones died and battery wins
• 25W on base and Plus vs 60W Ultra charging
• iPhone 17 value pressure on Samsung pricing
• Buds 4 Pro redesign, case changes, find phone button
• Smart rings, comfort, Samsung Health, sleep apnea screening
• Oura patent action and likely settlement dynamics
• One UI 8.5 Now Nudges potential and controls
• Medison breach clarified as medical data, not consumer accounts
• Quick Share interoperability with AirDrop and EU pressure
• Oppo Find X9 Pro as a wake‑up call on cameras and battery
• Foldables as Samsung’s innovation flagship vs slab stagnation

“Keep expanding your galaxy.”

S26 Ultra Mystery Box Sign up: https://laylo.com/springer/8g0gnSvT
Video Podcast on Youtube: https://bit.ly/3yBw3Ro

Follow Jeff on X (Twitter): https://x.com/jspring86az
Follow Torrey on X: https://x.com/T_Martin_23
Check out our website: https://sammyguru.com

Transcript

Opening, Housekeeping, Team Updates

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back, everybody. This is episode number 49 of the Sammy Guru Podcast. My name is Jeff Springer. With me as always, my co-host Tori. Tori, say hi. Hey, how's it going? And we're here live on a frig, well, not live. We're pre-recording live on Friday here. That's a pretty busy, you know, busy day out here in the industry right now. And uh we got a lot of content to cover. There's a lot of drama going down in the industry. A lot of people posting fake leaks on Twitter with AI generated images of S26 devices. People are out there and they're like, here, let me generate some images with Jim and I, and I'll just put those up there and be like, look at the S26 Plus guys. Yeah. And people are people are uncovering the secrets of their transgressions. Because whenever you try to generate AI content and pass it off as real, your transgressions usually find you.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

But how are you doing, Tori?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Uh I'm doing good overall. Pretty, pretty good day. Um, pretty good week overall. So I think, you know, as we make our way towards the Thanksgiving holidays, um it's gonna keep getting better. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Oh, yeah? You you teach at Cesar Chavez High School, right? Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Oh, that's right. So, did you know actually the new guy we have for video, Joseph? That's where he went to high school.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

No, really?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, it is. When you guys were here together, uh I didn't even think about it, but I forgot you taught there. But yeah, he went to high school, that's where he went to high school.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Oh, did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah. Did you ever teach Joseph? Probably not, I guess. No, probably not. You probably remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, I probably remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, so we hired a new video guy who helps me with helping me with some V-roll um on my personal channel. Um, it's been quite a couple months of transition because you know I got the new personal channel format trying to get Sami Guru going. Um, I'm finding it hard to balance between the two, but I've I'm probably gonna find a person to help me make Samsung specific videos at Sami Guru as well. Yeah. So we can continue to churn out that old Sami Guru content because people want their updates. And I've definitely been slacking, but unfortunately, with everything that I do, it's very difficult to keep up because the website also had issues, and then I have to troubleshoot those issues. Yeah. You know, I'm the tech guy, the finance guy, the content creator guy.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

The uh the distribution center guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, sometimes one thing is not working, and so then, you know, you you know, you you gotta try to sometimes you have to take the deficit from one thing and and move it to another, you know, and just like borrow time from one aspect and the other. Eventually we'll get it all going. But yeah, now I have a guy editing my videos on my personal channel, someone helping me shoot some B-roll clips, and uh, I have some talks right now with a couple of guys who are gonna hopefully help with creating some content on the Sami Guru channel, so I'll be back to full strength. So if people have been missing the Samsung videos, I'm sorry, but it's impossible for me to do all the things I'm supposed to do in a given day. I run out of time. Um and unfortunately that's kind of got pushed to the side, but I'm definitely it's it's a priority to get that back going. Um and doing those videos again. And I will be back doing Samsung videos too myself. It's just I can't make the same volume that I used to because now I'm doing some videos on my own channel. Which have been going pretty well overall. I've been enjoying that. Um mystery box stuff. We're getting ready for that. Now it's almost the holiday time. Tori's gonna be making some boxes.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

I will be quite busy.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

He'll be bagging some and tagging some. We'll be when he's out for teaching, we'll be getting ready to pack those up and get ready to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Just kind of set up my show and I just start.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, Tori just works while I'm doing other tasks here in the office. Just kind of gets it moving. Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's finally cooling down here in the Phoenix area.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

It is, but it's been very rainy. I mean, it's snow in Tollison.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Is that that's where you teach, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Or uh no, no, no, that's way down in Levine.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Where's your school again? It's it's in the central part of Phoenix.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Uh no, um, Levine, so like South Phoenix. Okay, yeah. South.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, it's so crazy that that uh Joseph went to the same school that you teach at. Yeah, I know. I was thinking about it today because he was like, that's where I went to high school when I was like, isn't that where Tori teaches? I'm pretty sure. Pretty certain like that I've heard that name before. And he is like, yeah, that's that's where it is in Levine. And I was like, okay, well.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Oh, all right, yeah.

Workload, Content Plans, Mystery Boxes

Community Catch‑ups And Local Talk

SPEAKER_01 4:26

And after all, next time you'll give him the Cesar Chavez chant or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. Cesar Chavez people do. There you go. You'll hit him with one of those. Yeah. Um but we got a lot to get into, and uh, so let's get into it because we got a little bit late start today, but I want to talk about some stuff. First, let's talk about this fake leak stuff. So basically, I I want to say something about this as the owner of Sammy Grew. Basically, what happened was one of our writers, um he didn't start this, but he had been getting information from two guys on X. I'm not gonna call out all their names and stuff, but a couple of guys on X who had proasted some information that we believe was mostly credible about the S26 Ultra, S26 Plus, and the S26, and a lot of the things to do with like the camera and the battery, um, and Ice Universe, our good buddy, he got into butting heads, a verbal spat with these guys on X because he was saying they were giving false information. And so we we publish, you know, first of all, the statement I want to make is that we we publish if if someone reports something on a Samsung device, we publish it to let you know that it's out there, because that's what you do as media, right? And then we always comment on whether or not we think it's credible, you know, at the end of the article. We always weigh in on like, you know, this seems to be credible because this person has a good track record, or we have no idea who this person is, so take this with a grain of salt or something like that. Or we try to stack up the evidence. And so we reported all of these, even though we never stated them as fact or leaks, because our writer, um Fidel, he had uh gotten the information from these guys that seemed to kind of go along with what the people had said, but then one of those guys posted a quote unquote leaked image of what they claimed was a real S26 Plus uh on X. And it turns out lots of people did some checking through reverse AI searches and just general, like looking at the device. It did make s the device didn't look right because the antenna lines were in the wrong spot relative to the buttons based on what we know about how Samsung does things and how you know, just technically where the antenna lines have to go for the phone to work properly. And so basically the images were generated with AI. And we said as much. Sumit, who's our editor-in-chief, when he wrote up this particular quote-unquote leak from X, he said, you know, even though these guys seem to have had some previous information until now, it's kind of hard to trust them because of the fact that these are AI generated. And we've gotten more evidence since then that these were indeed AI generated images. And so I just want to say that, you know, people some people have criticized us and a few other people, other outlets for reporting on some of these smaller outlets, you know, leakers, quote unquote leakers. Obviously, I don't know that they had any real information at this point or not. I'm just gonna say, you know, obviously we realize there's a big difference between Ice Universe, OnLeaks, EV Leaks, these guys who've been doing this for 15 years in mobile, and some guy who's Joe Schmoe off of X, who has a bunch of numbers in his uh X handle, who we don't know who's only been doing this, you know, they started their X account in August 2025. Yeah. There's a big difference, and obviously we filter those differences. Basically, when we post something from EV Leaks or OnLeaks or Ice Universe, we we give them their proper gravitas, as you could say, in the industry, where we say, you know, you could basically take this to the bank. There's a 99% chance that this is in fact going to be what the case is for that spec or that look or that element of device when Samsung unveils it on the stage at Unpacked in January. We always give people their due if they have a strong track record. But that doesn't mean as a media that you don't report on other things, right? Uh this is the this is the case with any media, whether it be us as like a niche tech blog, Samsung fan blog that covers Samsung stuff, or the mainstream media that covers politics and all that stuff. If something happens that's on your beat, the thing that you cover, you report on it and then you filter through like how likely you think that is to be a valid source or not. Um you know, publishing and covering mobile phone news is a little different also than covering something like politics, where yes, if someone makes an outlandish claim, you know, and I I'm not getting into any politics here. I'm just saying since Donald Trump is a president, if someone makes a crazy claim about Donald Trump, you don't necessarily publish that as a political journalist because that that could have huge negative implications. That's a little different when you're covering phone leaks. Your audience wants to know about the possibilities that are out there. And there's not like no country is gonna get blown up or you know, there's not gonna be any far-reaching consequences to people's lives if we report something someone is saying about the S26 Ultra. So we report it and then we filter whether or not we think that's true and fits with the other information that we have, which I think is what most journalists do. So basically, I'm defending not only Sammy Gru and our writers, uh, including Fidel, who I don't think did anything wrong. He was trying to get information from these guys, and he's admitted, you know, sense that these particular renders were not likely to be real. Well, we've kind of proven that they're not real because of all the inconsistencies. But, you know, defending us and not we weren't the only outlet who covered lots of other outlets covered, other big Android blogs covered this. Um, you know, just because something's not necessarily guaranteed to be real doesn't mean you don't necessarily report on what's out there because you know, we're talking what you know, we cover what people want to see and what they what they're talking about in the Samsung community, and that was getting a lot of tension on X, so we covered it. That's kind of how it works. Onatori, what do you think about the whole situation? Oh, yeah. People using AI generated images out there, it's it's running rampant these days.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, I know. It's it's getting really rampant. Like, you know, you you just really have to be careful. Uh, and obviously, this is not just also in Samsung phones, but just like a lot of things in general in terms of for leaks, um, is being AI generated a lot, you know, a fair amount of stuff. So uh I think is now is even more important on you know uh entities that cover you know news out, you know, like tech niche outlets to be able to report on that and to be able to give some validity to it because some of the average you know users who might even pop on, or even avid people, uh may not be able to discern between what's AI and not. And so like I think now more than ever, we're gonna need to um lean on tech industry, uh tech news outlets to and actually I forgot about that.

Setting The Agenda: Fake Leaks

AI Images Exposed And Editorial Policy

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So, you know, Tori makes a great point. Another good justification for outlets like us at Sami Guru and you know other Android blogs like Android Authority, Android Police to cover this is because if a regular person who is not a tech enthusiast, you know, some of these were trending on X. And so if you're just a casual person who has a Samsung phone, maybe that gets recommended to you, and you're just looking at it and you don't know if it's legitimate or not, um, well then there's a place, you know, one of these blogs is a place where you can go and read our commentary and be like, okay, this thing exists, but here's the reasons why maybe this is not quite quite right. And so just because something you know isn't necessarily guaranteed to be real or it doesn't even quite look real, doesn't mean you don't publish it. There's a lot a couple of people who criticized, I think even on leaks was saying that all the blogs are just covering these to get extra clicks. Well, of course, that's our revenue model. We cover stuff too too quick, big clicks, just like he sells leaks to make money. And it's yeah, but but also it's not just for the purpose of getting clicks with no value to people. There are people who don't necessarily know, they might see this on X or in other social media because it was widely out there on Reddit. They don't know or they can't discern if these things are real or not. And so getting some analysis filtered through media outlets who cover this every day, our tech journalists who cover Samsung every day at Sammy Guru, I actually think that's a positive thing. And I don't think it's just posting. I don't think it's just posting to get clicks with no value. I mean, again, I'm not saying we don't want to get clicks, of course we do. We try to make the content that gets the most clicks so we can keep existing while also offering value to our readers. That's what every blog does on the internet. It's very getting very, very hard because Google keeps taking away your options by replacing you with AI-generated search results and Reddit and search social media search results. Very hard as a blog now to survive and make revenue. Somehow we've been able to continue doing it thanks to you guys' support and the mystery boxes and all that, and me also busting my ass at YouTube, continuing to make videos of my personal channel. But you know, we've been able to survive, but it is very tough to be an independent blog. So yeah, I mean, I'm not denying that we need to make money, but we try to walk the line between stuff that will get clicks and gets recommended in Google search and discover and also serves our audience in a really meaningful way. So that's pretty much mostly what I have to say about that. I want to talk about that first because a lot of people have been talking about that, particularly some bigger people, like I said, like on leaks, have commented on this. And I just wanted to make sure I put it in perspective as being the managing editor at Samiguru. I don't think we did anything wrong in this case. Um, turning our attention back to the S26 series in in reality, not fake leaks, but in reality, um we basically now seem to believe or the agreed upon stance among everyone is that it looks like Samsung has gone back to January as a launch date. We talked about it in the last podcast, but that's kind of become more clear now. It looks like it's not gonna be February. It's gonna be the same usual timeline. This is not great news for me because that means I'm probably gonna be working really hard while I'm at CES, working really hard on other YouTube stuff. I'll be working hard on reservations and getting ready for mystery box stuff, but that's part of the business. I'm not gonna complain. I was kind of hoping that my CES for once I would be able to like stroll the halls and enjoy my time a little bit, but that doesn't look like it's in the cards. So I'll just be I'll just be taking a look at a few items in between running between jobs, uh, between YouTube filming and and doing stuff for the Samsung reserves. Um, but that looks like January. Uh we we kind of covered all the S26 Ultra upgrades, so let's briefly, I guess, kind of talk a little bit about the PLOS and the base model, because I think the last one we did, we focused on all of the upgrades that were on the ultra. So we're not gonna spend the whole show on this because these are not are of less a little less interest than the ultra. Um, considering the ultra accounts are like 80% of the total sales of the S line if you hear. Yeah. Um, but so basically what happened with the rest of the lineup was originally there was going to be the edge, the pro, and the ultra. And so now basically it looks like as it happened is the ultra basically nothing really ever changed with the ultra. Its whole development track has been pretty stable. Like there was always going to be an ultra. There still is an ultra. Samsung wouldn't change that because again, it's it counts for 80% of the sales. Why would you why would you mess with something that's working? But then there was supposed to be the edge and the pro, and so those were supposed to be somewhat different than the plus and the base that we had for the S25. But somewhere along the line between the S25 Edge selling like a piece of crap, the iPhone Air selling like a piece of crap, and Apple basically is internally canceled the iPhone Air 2, according to some sources. Samsung said, Oh, shoot, we should probably cancel the S26 Edge because we didn't make any money off of the S25 Edge. We still got all this extra stock of those we can't sell. Apple's not selling very many iPhone Airs. That's a huge red flag because they could, you know, you know, they could basically sell water to someone.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Hey, I mean, they've been selling socks and sold out in hours.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, they could sell water to a whale.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

What was it?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

They could sell a sock to put your iPhone in for$300 if you buy it.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, yeah, and they did.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

And so Samsung is like, well, if they could sell socks for$300, but they can't sell iPhone Airs, that's a big problem. Like, that's a huge red flag that people don't want slim phones. So maybe we should adjust our strategy.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And that doesn't crazy. Uh last week I saw multiple ads on the official Samsung um like social media, they had ads for the for the edge.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Well, I don't think that's a coincidence. They're trying to clear all the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I think they got a little bit of Black Friday deal.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

I think they yeah, dude. I mean, seriously, if you want an edge, and to be honest with you, uh I was gonna talk a little bit, you know, because again, we gotta made the money, yeah, but later in the show, I was gonna talk a little bit about Black Friday deals because it is next week, and I don't know when we'll post next week's podcast. We'll try to do one next week, but it might not be before Black Friday that it goes live. Talk about that at the end. But if you want an S25 edge, and like it is not, to be honest with you, is not a bad, it is a good phone, in my opinion. I was gonna say not a bad phone, but it's a good phone. Like, if you're not someone who needs the top-tier battery life, yeah, it's just not you're not gonna get the top tier battery life. It's it's got a small battery, but it's not like insanely bad. It's basically very similar to the iPhone Air and battery life. The air is the iPhone Air is not that much better. Um, but if you only need four hour screen on time, like if you're someone like Tori, he's teaching for like seven hours during the day. Yeah, he can't flip through his phone, it's sitting in his desk. And so if you can get home and charge that up before you go out for the night or whatever on the weekends, maybe you only need four hours screen on time if your job is something where you're not going to be able to be flipping through your phone. Now, the edge and the air are very tough for me because I use my phone all day. Yeah, that's like because I'm out shooting content. Sometimes I use them as b-roll cams, answer a lot of emails, answer a lot of social posts. But if you're not me and you have the ability to charge, but I mean, also, even for me, I'll say I was able to survive when I used the edge in the air because I'm also in the studio a lot. So I have chargers everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

I just plug them in. You know, Tori organized the office like a month and a half or two months ago. We got like 700 chargers in those four drawers over there. We have we have a husky like uh tool chest, big tool chest, four of the drawers full of chargers and cables. It's it. Like we have four drawers that are full of chargers and cables, and that's it. I mean, there's literally hundreds of them in there. Um, next task is gonna be to organize them by type. It's because yes, right now, when I look through there, I'm like, what kind of cable is this? Is it a micro SD, USB C, Lightning? I don't know. You know, it's a mystery. It's like it's like the mystery box. You never know what you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

You know, everything here is just a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Sammy Gru is a very mysterious place, you know. I always pick up various items and like, what the hell is this? You know, it's like I haven't seen this in years. And it's because you just have so much stuff around this office. But anyway, back on track. Uh if you want the edge, Black Friday, I bet they'll I I'm gonna predict. I have and I haven't seen the sales yet, but I bet next week at some point, at some point, I bet you'll be able to get an S25 Edge for$500. Oh, probably. That's a crazy deal because it was selling for$1,100 originally. ATT, some like out the I mean I mean yeah, but I mean unlocked. I think Samsung I think Samsung or Amazon will sell you an unlocked one some point next week or Cyber Monday for$500.$4.99. I bet that's gonna happen. That's a that's actually a really good deal. I mean, if you don't mind having four hour screen on time and you like a really light phone, I would say buy an edge for$5500 if it's on sale. I mean, they already went down to$600 one time, I think.$500 Black Friday, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, let's see. Uh uh right now, Amazon currently uh is going for$819.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, that's kind of high. It was down to six something at one point. I'm I'm guessing next week at least$550, and it's still a good deal. I would say anywhere at$650 or below, if you can find it and you really do like it, it's pretty good. Um But going back to why Samsung decided to cancel it, it's pretty clear that the majority of people would prefer to have a bigger, thicker phone with bigger batteries and more cameras, and they don't care as much about the weight. Because honestly, if you pick up the S25 Ultra, it's not like, oh, my hand is so tired because this phone is so heavy. It's really not that heavy. I mean, if you do carry the edge of the air, will you notice? Well, yeah, you will if you have this phone next to it. But if you only have this phone, you're not you're not like, oh, you know what I really hate about this phone? It's just so heavy. I know I can barely I can barely carry this phone from here to my car when I have to leave the office. It's like lifting dumbbells. You know, I feel like I don't even need to go to the gym. I just lift my S25 Ultra. I have two of them. I put one in each hand and I do curls. That's how I'm so powerful at doing reviews because I lift my S25 Ultras with curls, and that's exactly how the reviews are so powerful. Um, but it's clear people don't want that. So they decided no edge. And then somewhere along the line, it seems like Samsung realized, and I I don't even know that so there's a lot of there's still a lot of uncertainty about these two phones. Somewhere along the line, I guess they realized that people like me and Tori, because we talked about this back when it was supposed to be the pro and the edge. Samsung was like, wait, what's pro about the pro? True. Because we said that like a bunch of times. Yeah. Because we read all the leaks and we're like, wait, it's basically the same as the base model. They just put a word pro on the end of it. Yeah, they didn't put anything pro in it. And Samsung was probably like, Well, you know, those guys are right. We can't just call this pro because there's no pro camera.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

So maybe they do listen to us.

Why Cover Questionable Leaks At All

SPEAKER_01 22:11

And so, and they probably read all the media who were saying that. And so it seems like internally someone was just like, Well, we're just gonna have to call it the S26 again because we can't call it pro. People are gonna roast the hell out of us in the reviews if we do that. And so then that's how the S26 Edge got cut. The S26 Plus was like, hey, you guys remember me? I'm still over here. You guys tried to kick me to the curb for that slim little biatch over there, but I'm back and better than ever. So the S26 Plus slid right back in the lineup, which basically was is just gonna be a slightly upgraded S25 Plus. Yeah, and then they're like, Let's chop the pro off that S26. It's like S26 Pro becomes the S26. And so now it looks like we're gonna get the same lineup we had last time, S26, S26 Plus, S26 Ultra, where almost nothing has changed among all of them, including perhaps the most annoying and disappointing thing, which I still don't understand how Samsung can justify to anybody. I guess the average user just doesn't pay attention. The S26 and S26 Plus are apparently still gonna have 25 watt charging. Not even 45 watt. They've never gotten a charging upgrade. Samsung's lower tier phones, like the S25 FE, which isn't even a flagship, it has 45 watt charging. But the S26 and S26 Plus, which are gonna cost more, the S26 Plus is gonna cost like$400,$500 more than the S25 FE is gonna have 25 watt charging. Now the Ultra is getting the upgrade to 60 watts. We talked about that. Okay, and that's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, what the hell, man? Like, this is this is your flagship phones. Like, Apple would never do that. They'd be like, No, they would not. They'd be like, yeah, you guys could buy the 17 Pro Max, or you could buy its less favored step cousin, the 17 Pro, which has half the features, you know, it's half the size, so it also gets half the features. No, they don't do that. They they give you the same features on the Pro and the Pro Max. Why would you do that? I mean, it just makes people so mad that it's like if I want to buy a smaller phone, I have to lose a bunch of features. So that's why so many people buy the ultra and no one buy I mean not no one, but 20% versus 80%.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

It kind of cambalizes their own sales.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, the Pro Max does not have that kind of disparity for Apple. Like the Pro Max does sell a lot more than the Pro, but it's not like 80-20 like it is with the Ultra and the other models. Yeah. The Pro Max, I think it sells it outsells it like two to one, whereas with Samsung, the Ultra outsells the other two four to one. So, like, you know, it's like twice as you know more likely for someone to buy the bigger phone with Samsung. It's obvious why, because all the features that you want are on the ultra. Like, oh well, do I want my phone to charge at a snail's pace? Well, then I guess I have to get this massive phone that I don't want. Like, I want a 6.3 inch phone, but I don't want to have to wait three hours for my phone to finish charging. Yeah, to do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Because what if I got to take an S shower and shave when I get home? By the time I take an S shower and shave, my phone only charge 10%. So people are like, well, I guess I'll just have to get this massive phone that I don't want because I don't have a choice.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Um, if you think about it, I mean I think they would sell more if they like would bring some of that quality of life stuff on the ultra to those, because I I know a lot of average people who just don't want the ultra.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Like this one, I mean, really, the only distinguishing factor for the ultra, in my view, from the plus, yeah, could be the S pin. And that would be people who don't want to. And no, and the slightly size. Yeah, that's well, that's what I mean. So, aside from the size, we have three different models of different sizes. The only real difference between at least the plus and the ultra should just be the S Pen. So you got 6.3, 6.7, 6.9 sizes, and then from the plus, it has the same cameras as the ultra, same display tech, same charging, just not just no S Pen. Okay, which would make it lighter because it won't have that extra spot, it won't be as wide, quite as wide, you know, room for a bigger battery, too. So it would still have some distinguishing silo. Yeah. It would still have some distinguishing characteristics. Now, you can't necessarily give the smaller one all the features, but the Pro Max does have a few things over the Pro for Apple, but not very many. Should still have mostly the same camera system.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

That seems to be a foreign concept to Samsung. And I actually read an article that said, and we reported on this too, that the reason Samsung is not putting any of this tech into the base model is because their chief concern, which we already know TM Rowe, he's the cheapest guy in the history of running Samsung, his primary concern is keeping that model as cheap as possible at$7.99. And the reason is he's scared to raise the price of the base model because Apple launched the iPhone 17, the non-pro iPhone 17, the regular one, which sells like hotcakes too. They launched that at$7.99. And see, Apple upgraded everything on the iPhone 17. They put a 140 hertz screen in there. They put that anti-glare on the on it. Their non-pro phone, which doesn't have the pro moniker, basically that's what's gonna get compared to the S26. And so he's looking at that and he's like, Well, we gotta keep the price the same. We gotta keep the price the same. Well, but what about the features?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Apple's still blowing you away in camera. So even if it has the same price, people are gonna say, Oh, well, the 17 has a much better camera and battery and battery life. So, what the hell is the point of keeping the price the same? I mean, if you have to raise the price$100 to compete on the features, I think I'd rather do that. Because the people who use Samsung and Android, they don't necessarily want to move to the iPhone. So they might be willing to pay$100 more.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Yeah.

S26 Timeline And Launch Window

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Samsung seems to be caught up in this delusion still that there's a lot of people who are gonna jump from the iPhone to a Galaxy phone in the slab in the slab category, and that's just not happening. The jumps are happening from people on the iPhone who want one of the foldables, and those people jump to Samsung because they can't get that with Apple yet. Yeah. But in terms of taking Apple's market share on the slab phones, I do I'm sorry, I don't see that happen on this year.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Because that's kind of like their bread and butter.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, yeah. And they released, they put the kitchen sink in the iPhone 17 for$7.99. So you can't release a phone that has 25 watt charging, all these terrible downgrades from the you know, the other, you know, the Ultra. And yeah, it's got the same price. But if you look at the iPhone 17, in my opinion, it's gonna blow away the S26. Oh, yeah. So I don't know. But that's why apparently he's like, we gotta launch it at$7.99, or it's non-competitive. Well, I don't think it's taking any sales from Apple anyway. And you're probably gonna continue to piss off your loyal fans. Maybe those loyal fans who are tired of getting shafted on the base model and the plus, they will look up, they'll look at the Apple side. Those fans who are getting tired of getting shafted over there, they might look at the iPhone 17. So maybe you should consider raising the price slightly and giving people some features they want. Because the people who really love Samsung who are buying those phones, who want that size, they don't mind paying a little more so they they don't have to go to Apple. I don't think you're grabbing anybody who has a base iPhone to go to the S26. I just don't think it's happening.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

No, no, I don't think it's again that uh it's really like their their bread and butter. Like they know, like in terms of for US competition, there's no way. Um, but like if it's like the foldable market, I think, yeah, they got ground, but I mean they need to, I think, really just bring up the base model, uh, which is some of the like again we said. This before the average consumer, what they want is a better camera, better battery. If you know, because again, like people who are probably also just getting and a bigger battery, yeah, yeah, yeah. And faster charging, which they're not getting well, because you gotta think too, like most people who are getting the base models are probably also people who don't upgrade every year, right? Yeah, um, and so like they just want to hey, look, if I'm spending, you know, like even though like what however much it costs, like uh, even though it's not the same cost as the ultra, that's still a lot of money.$800 to$900 a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of money, you know, especially too if they're also getting a finance, you know, option through like a carrier, that's a lot of money. And so, like, all they really want is to know that hey, am I getting something like a little on par? You know, something a little bit better than what I'm trading in.

S26 Lineup Shake‑ups And Cancellations

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, um, so and the truth is if you trade in an S24, S25, it really doesn't look like you are getting anything much better than what you're trading in. Yeah, you're just gonna get a different color.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

The average person doesn't even know that.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, you're just gonna get a different color, and then you'll get just as a new year, and they'll say the four will come a six, yeah, and then they'll give you two more years of software updates, but that's about it, it looks like unfortunately. There's not a whole lot going on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Um, so I mean, I wish I could tell you is just that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

I wish I could tell you guys there's gonna be like some amazing upgrades on the S26 series, but it doesn't really seem like it. Um well, Samsung thinks that TM Rowe's doing a great job because um in other news yesterday, they gave him a promotion. He's now the head of the full division, uh, the DX division, which is the device experience. So not just mobile experience, all devices that Samsung has under their consumer electronics portfolio basically now will be ran by TM Rowe. The guy who is the one and who's keeping all these premium features out of your base model because he doesn't want to raise the price, he's now gonna be having his hands in even more things to do uh on the Samsung side of things.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

So what this means that we get a new person over mobile?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Uh yeah, the guy who is remember the guy who made uh I forgot his name. Uh Jay. The guy who came over from Mercedes, who made the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. He's now, I guess, taking over mobile experience, I believe. Um he's gonna see the mobile experience business, but uh yeah, the the basically they're restructuring some of the way they're doing these things. Oh yeah, Jane Jang Hung Yoon, um, president chief technology officer of the DX division and head of Samsung Research. So they basically moved him into a position with mobile experience as well. Um so he's now TM Rowe's got more power, and so does Yoon, the guy who designed the Buds 3 Pro. I mean, I don't have a huge problem with that guy, but that guy seems to be someone who's more about form over function, even though yeah, I like the Buds 3 Pro design. Oh, and speaking of that guy, he took some of the feedback people had about the Buds 3 Pro because now, and I'll show you these score because I know you're a Buds fan. You like your Buds 3 Pro the Buds 4 Pro, we now have official renders of what they're gonna look like uh because the people at Android Authority ac actually got some images of what they look like. Let's see if I can find them here. Um here's the design of the Buds 4 Pro. They're gonna have metal stems now on the sides. And so the metal stems, see the right there. Sam? The metal stem is gonna be flat. So instead of having like a rounded thing where you can do your tap gestures, it's really a new design that doesn't look anything like the AirPods or anything. So they definitely took people's feedback to heart and they were like, hey, here's the look at it. Well, I think they just didn't like the fact that it looked so much like the AirPods. These don't look like AirPods at all. No, no, no, no, no. These have a flat side on the, you know, it's gonna be metal. And now you can use the touch gestures there. Android Authority leaked all these, they got this information. The case is also gonna be redesigned, it's gonna be wider and flatter. Okay. So it's gonna be the case. Can you see that there?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Oh, so the buds are just lay-in.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, yeah, they'll lay in there to be a little more compact, it looks like. There's a little design, different design shape, which also makes it look different than the AirPods, because the Buds 3 Pro case kind of looks exactly like the AirPods. Everything looks like the AirPods except for the lights that light up. That's the only thing. But I like this design. So if this is what Yoon is doing, you know, he's gonna continue down this path. It looks like these are functional and they look good. So I mean, I won't say that I dislike his design here with the Buds 4 Pro. Um, there's a couple different features, too, that are rumored with the Buds 4 Pro that we saw. One of them is you'll be able to find uh your phone button on the case. So the case will have a button you can press to find your phone. Oh. So if you have your buds where you're like, where the heck did I put my phone? Press the button on the buds, your phone will ring or vibrate or whatever. Oh, it's a good one. And you'll be able to find your device. So, you know, that's pretty cool. I mean, we like that. We think that's pretty cool. I mean, I do think the Buds4 Pro with this design, there's the white ones too. The white ones look really nice with the silver metal stem, because you can tell it's really metal. Um, the only thing I don't like about white earbuds is that they get all that ear gunk on them and they're look, they look worse and they look harder to clean than the black earbuds, which is why I typically try to stick to black uh you know, silicon tips.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

I really like the that gray color.

Charging Speeds And Feature Gaps

SPEAKER_01 35:28

That is the gunmetal color is nice. And this is gonna be similar, just with metal now. So this is still the gunmetal color on the black um buds. But these these look really nice. It looks like Samsung is in line to add some new health features here um and do some various things with the Buds4 Pro that could be interesting. They're expected to launch with the S26 as well. Um, so we're likely gonna see those in January, January 22nd, or whatever. Um, and I mean I would I would say basically of what we've seen here, I mean, I would think a lot of people will probably upgrade. Like this looks this looks like a much bigger upgrade than the phones. Like if you have a pair of Buds 3 Pro, like this looks like an upgrade where if you bought these, you feel like you're actually getting an upgrade instead of just getting a different number on the end of the product and a different color. Although the colors are pretty similar to last time, it's just now you got the metal stems. But this actually looks like an upgrade. So new health features, new stem design, new gestures, the find my phone button on the case, and new case design. This could be a big, big upgrade um in terms of that. So maybe if you're not excited about S26, S26 Plus, or S26 Ultra, which I I mean, I certainly I I can't blame you, I guess. Because there's been all these there's been all these leaks where it's like there's gonna be major upgrades and then nothing ends up happening where there ends up being no upgrades to the camera or you know to all the various things like battery or charging for the base models that we talked about. But at least the Buds 4 Pro, they're gonna have some upgrades. Um, the other disappointing thing, while we're still talking about S26, we talked about the Ultra last week, but there's been another disappointing thing that came out last night. It looks like even though that the S26 Ultra is going to get the M14 OLED displays, it is not likely to get a brightness boost upgrade, which is absolutely insane to me. Because that's the whole point, in my opinion, of having the M14 OLED. Um so Samit wrote this piece right here M14 OLED confirmed, but the S26 Ultra may not get a brightness boost. So Samsung's upcoming S26 Ultra expected to deliver meaningful display uh improvements, but a new leak suggests some of the rumor upgrades may not materialize. Namely, the brightness is going to stay at 2600 nits. And uh that's not so great because a lot of the Chinese phones are now going beyond that. Where Samsung was previously like the display king in terms of brightness and viewing angles. Uh, like a lot of phones. I have the Fine Dex9 Pro that I actually imported from Europe. I love that phone. I talk about it a little bit in the last half of the or last whatever of the show. Um when we talk about hard when I talk about hardware for a minute. That phone is amazing. It has 7,000 plus milliamp hour battery. It gets like two full days of battery life, and that's something I never could get on the S25 Ultra. Samsung really should take some cues from Oppo. I mean, it obviously what they should learn from the S25 Edge and the S26 edge being canceled in the iPhone Air, people don't want slim phones, so that's a mandate. That's what we say in politics. You've been mandated to make thicker phones. People, if they don't want the slim, what they really want is thick. They like that thick, they like it thicky. You know, give me a thicky. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

You know, you know, and thicker than a snicker. Yeah. And I I just think like, you know, people just want like there's just so much that you can utilize for the ultra phones, like in just like your day-to-day life, that like, you know, it's just you need that battery to do it.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because how are you gonna realize all those great features if your phone dies at six o'clock?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

You're like, oh man, I need to use my phone for some notes with my S pen. I need to do some reverse power sharing to my buds. I can't do any of that because phone battery is dead. I gotta throw it on the old uh charger there, keep it moving, whatever, whatever. Um, a lot of other interesting stuff going on. Um I actually reviewed a smart ring on my channel. I guess I'll talk about this now because there's a Galaxy Ring story I want to mention next. Uh, I reviewed the RingCon Gen 2, which is a smart ring that's a competitor to the Galaxy Ring and the Aura Smart Ring. And you know, I wore the Galaxy Ring for a long time, but this ring that I reviewed on my personal channel, I actually like it a lot. I mean, legitimately, I posted a review video of it today, and it's lighter than the Galaxy Ring, and they made a little, I forgot it today, of course, that I didn't have to talk about it. I left it on my nightstand today because I ran out of the house quickly. But it's got a little bit of uh across the bottom of your finger, they changed the shape so it's a little bit wider, so it doesn't like tighten. Because one thing about the galaxy ring is they tried to make it perfectly round or mostly round. And down here, when you're like moving your finger, because it's got those sensors down here, those sensors on the inside, you don't have sensors on the inside in your regular ring, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so those little sensors they kind of push into your finger. And so when you're bending your finger, you don't have, yeah, especially when you're sleeping, if you don't have that extra space on the bottom where the sensors are for your finger to move around, it's gonna hurt. So this ring, ringcon, they did that, and it's I actually find it a lot more comfortable to wear. I would like to see Samsung take some design cues from that. And the cool thing about the RingCon is it integrates with Samsung Health, so you can still use Samsung health tracking if you wear the Ring Con ring and all your data from RingCon ring goes into your Samsung Health. So if you want to use your watch and your Ringcon ring together for the health tracking, it's basically just like you have a Galaxy ring because all the data still gets poured into Samsung Health. Yeah. Use it to analyze all your data. And the other cool feature, which I think Samsung should add to the next Galaxy ring, which I didn't even think about until I reviewed this one, the Galaxy, the RingCon ring has sleep apnea monitoring and tracking. Oh, that would be right. It can actually determine if you have sleep apnea, or obviously it their disclaimer is there and it's not the ring is not a medical professional. You should always go see your doctor and do a sleep test if the ring detects that you might have it. But I wore it for like three nights and it said I was at mild risk, like a 10 or 9 out of 30 for sleep apnea. And so I actually scheduled a thing at the sleep center. I'm gonna go do it and see if I really do. I mean, it's not like a huge number, it's nine or ten out of thirty. It's like a never know. But you never know if I have some mild thing. I mean, that could help me get better rest, things like that. So, I mean, that's a good feature, actually. I I could imagine, you know, the Galaxy Ring 2 having sleep apnea monitoring would be really cool. But I like the Ring Con. I mean, if it didn't have the Samsung health integration, I may not have been able to stick with it, but I might stick with it as my smart ring because other than that, it does a lot of the stuff that I would do with the Galaxy Ring. Now, of course, if Samsung brings those awesome magic wand gestures to the ring 2, then I'll switch back to Samsung. But it would be nice if they would also make the bottom part of it more comfortable where the sensors are and add some other health features like the sleep apnea and stuff like that. No, for sure. And still bring back the Samsung pay to the ring, which I don't think that's ever going to happen. But hey, you never know.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Yep.

Pricing Strategy Vs iPhone 17

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Um, but the story I wanted to mention is Samsung is facing a lawsuit, uh, ITC lawsuit from Aura over their apparent patents that Samsung used in the Galaxy Ring. Aura says that Samsung infringed on patents that are related to the form factor components, internal and external, and manufacturing methods of smart rings in general. So Aura is coming after Samsung. They're saying, we don't like you being in this space, your big, bad, multi-level integrated business. Get your bully booty out of here. And so they're gonna file this lawsuit and make Samsung spend money. Now, of course, at the end of the day, um, you know, Samsung is basically about a thousand times larger than Aura in terms of so Aura doesn't really want to tie this up in court for a long time. They're probably looking for a settlement of some sort. Oh, yeah, probably. Because if it comes down to fighting legal battles, Samsung has way more money for lawyers than Aura. Samsung could tie this up in court with lawyer fees until Aura goes out of business, basically. Um they have plenty of budget, stick it to them. They have plenty of budget to fight legal fees. The only the only company that wants to that doesn't have a problem taking on Samsung in court would be Apple. Oh, yeah. And you know, they've done they've both done battle many times in court and it ends up being very expensive for both sides because neither of them are willing to concede because they have money to keep just paying the lawyers. That's what happens when you know it's hard to get a settlement when you're like, well, I have infinite money. I got infinite money, I got infinite money, so why am I gonna settle? I'll just keep trying to battle here. We just do battle. Which battle, you know? Pokemon gotta catch them all. Gotta catch them all. Oh man, I'll tell you right now, too. I didn't mention at the beginning of the show, but you know, me and Jonathan, we opened our case. I I got a couple cases of this. I opened one case of it. Yeah. I opened one. We've opened five boxes. We've got no Charizard.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

No, no Charizard.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

We're on the last box for tomorrow. We got like the base little, you know, the little Charizard that's worth like five dollars. But not even the full art, not not the SIR, the gold one, not even the full art Charizard that's worth like 50 bucks and get any of them. No. We got up tons of garbage. We only got one SIR and it was like mega Sharpedo, which is worth like 30 bucks. I know. We opened five boxes and we basically have gotten maybe three or four hundred dollars worth of cards. The sets got massive variants because if you don't pull one of the big Charizards, you're definitely not gonna get your monies back out of ripping it. The good news is I used my 20% off discount at Silver Dragon to buy this case from them. So I think I got that, they were selling them for$260 a box. Okay. And so I ended up getting this for like I I don't even remember everything. It was only like$1,300 for a whole case. Okay. That's good. That's almost$200 a box. So at least I I only burned$1,300 and not$1,800. That's something. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, hey, there's still one box left. We could pull one of the Charizards and we would make almost all of our money back from the case. But you know, right now it's not looking good. I'm a little disappointed that we didn't pull one, even the full art. I mean, geez, man, like, where are the Charizards at? What are you doing? Where's the Charizards? You know, I'm gonna write them a letter. They're making my son cry. He just wants the full screen one. You know, the full art. He doesn't even care about he doesn't even want the SIR, the gold one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do because I want my money back out of this case, but but he doesn't care. Um what else? There's some other fantastic stories coming out right now, and uh one of those stories is that Samsung is basically gearing up for the foldable launch in July next year, and it seems like their strategy is now shifted to where basically we talked about earlier, the S launch is now like the boring launch. Yeah, right. But even more so than before. Like the note back in the day when the note existed, the note was always the one where they introduced the cutting edge tech, and then the S line kind of got the more stable tech. But the S line still got upgrades. Now it's like it sounds like we're just not gonna upgrade anything but the color and the number and the processor, and that's it for the S line.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

They're like we're throwing everything into the foldables.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

If you want a slab phone, it's like we we don't have any budget for RD on that. We just change the number, change the color, put in the new Qualcomm processor or Exynos, depending on the region, we sell it to you. Maybe raise the price$100 for the Ultra, you know, and uh maybe delete the S Pen next year, you know, just for fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like F your S Pen. You guys want an S Pen? It's like that Michael Jordan mean F them kids, you know what I mean? He's like Samsung, TMRO, what do you think about the kids? The kids want the S Pen. He said, F them kids. That's kind of rude, you know what I mean? Rude. Um, but apparently the foldables, they're supposedly cooking, cooking big time, which is great. But it's like not everybody wants a foldable, that's the problem. Yeah, right. There's still way more people buying the slab. That's why I understand, like, they're losing their perspective. Like back in the day, the note, right, was a niche phone, so that was a good place to experiment, but then they eventually reintroduced a lot of that tech into the S line. Yeah, now it's just like we're only gonna do stuff on this very niche product for in for innovation that almost no one is buying relative to the general populace. That doesn't make any sense to me. Like, why it doesn't make sense? I mean, I guess they're like banking on the fact that they can keep grabbing more Apple users from the foldables, which probably is true.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah, probably until I don't think it's like boom new boom, boom.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Next year in September or the following September when Apple releases their first foldable, then you're not gonna be stealing any Apple users because those Apple users are gonna just buy the iPhone fold. So you got limited time. You got but apparently they're doing some crazy things with the fold. They may release a fold 8 FE, just like this year they did the fold 7 FE. I have no idea why the hell they would do that because it doesn't make you either because the thing is the fold set the flip seven FE I mean again, I don't know. I guess I can't say because I can't see the sales numbers on Samsung side, but for the mystery box purposes, and again, our audience is a little different because they're all hardcore fans. Almost no one bought the Flip 7 FE. So to make a fold 8 FE, I guess if it's good, it could be a good seller. Basically, it's a lower budget fold eight that would probably be like a fold six or fold seven hybrid that would have, you know, less camera, lesser cameras and not the same features as the flagship fold eight. It could be interesting. It depends on the price, yeah. Right? If it's priced like an S26, Ultra, maybe if it's like 1300 instead of 2000, that would be it could be interesting if they priced a fold 8 FE around 12, 1300. Oh, yeah. Because then people could get a fold for 700 less than the flagship fold.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

People might be done.

What Average Buyers Actually Want

SPEAKER_01 49:10

They might be tempted. I think they would. It depends on what they delete from the flagship model though and how ugly it is. If they make it super thick and ugly, I know, I know. If it's a if it's a fold, if it's a glorified fold six, then I think it's a hard no. Yeah. If it's basically a rebadged, if it's a rebadged flip fold seven, which is a a beautiful phone that I still have using my daily driver, then I would think a lot of people would want that for 120 or 1300.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

So what about the flagship fold eight, though? Apparently they're geared up to finally solve the crease issue. Supposedly there might be almost a creaseless inner display for the fold eight, which would be we hear this rumor every year, so I don't know if we should believe it or not, but supposedly they're gearing up to bring some of that technology. Potentially also we could be seeing uh the ability for them to slim it down slightly even more because of the hinge and the material they're using on the displays. Uh also improving the cameras again on the back, which they're not even doing with the S line, uh increasing the charging speed, just like they're doing on the ultra, they increased the charging speed to 60 watts. They're just doing a ton of stuff for the fold eight. Like the T fold eight. I mean, as much as I don't want to say this, I mean, I guess, I mean, people won't listen anyway, because if they want a slab phone, they're gonna buy it. For sure. I mean, hell, if you're a S Ultra user, I would say skip the S26 Ultra and just wait for the fold eight. Sounds like that's potentially the phone to purchase. I mean, I certainly understand though, if you're someone who doesn't want a foldable for there could be any number of reasons why you don't want a foldable. Yeah, for sure. You know, you never know. No, you never know. Maybe durability because you still don't have the same kind of dust and water resistance. Maybe you don't want it for that reason or whatever reason, but you know, I mean it they're definitely putting all their they're throwing the kitchen sink in there at it, which we know I like to see. Yes. Um let's briefly talk about I guess we won't just take we won't take it, maybe we won't take a break today.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Yeah, no, that's fine. You know, we'll just go straight through.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

We've got another 15 minutes or so. We can bust it, you know, bust it through here. Um UI 8.5 is apparently going to get a feature similar to Magic Q, which is going to be called Now Nudges. Now nudges. That's an interesting name. Yeah, nudges in the now. We're gonna nudge you now. So basically, what they would be is now nudges would be Galaxy AI using AI to look at what's on your screen and decide what you should do next, and it'll give you a nudge to say I think you should do this. So basically, they're taking the lesson of what I said that I did not like about the Pixel 10. I said I hated the fact that AI was in my face everywhere. And they said, Hey, you ever thought about putting AI in your face everywhere? And I was like, Well, I said I don't like that. But the good news is in 118.5, there's a very clear switch that lets you turn that feature off. Because this is one AI feature that I probably won't want. I mean, I'll try it, of course, because obviously that's what I do for a living. I review stuff, but I don't know. I mean, I didn't really like it on the Pixel. I still don't like it. I've turned it off on my Pixel 10. I know it's kind of the whole deal of the Pixel, but you never know. I mean, Samsung could implement it a little bit, you know, differently. They also says it can recall important info, so it understands what you're doing and shows you info you need when you need it. I mean, it might be useful for certain things. So theoretically, if you look in here, uh it'll supposedly let you turn it on or off for certain things, like you could turn it on for maps and calendar or off for other apps, like you don't want them to give you info on. Because you know, like AI can sometimes be annoying. Like the new version of Chat GPT, I hate it. Chat GPT 5.1 is a piece of garbage. I don't know what they did. Hey, whoever was working on that, they messed up my chat GPT because I like ChatGPT. Helps me with my scripting on YouTube, a lot of my business stuff. Now I ask it to generate something that it's done many times before. It asks me like 10 follow-up questions. It's like, Jeff, are you sure you want me to do this? But before I do it, but before I do it, can you tell me XYZ? And I'm like, hey, um, how about you just do it and don't ask me 10 follow-up questions? If I wanted 10 follow-up questions about my line of reasoning, I just asked my wife to do some of these tasks for me. Because then I could easily get 10 follow-up questions about my line of reasoning from her.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

That's the wrong one. Trying to pull out Chat GPT myself.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

You know, and it it makes me a little angry. So hopefully, you know, Samsung doesn't go down the annoying AI path. You know, we don't like that. Anyway, it's testing the feature with apps like DoorDash, Expedia, Market Curly, which I think must be an app in another region, and Trip. Um, the last category is called Get Done with the Get Things Done Quickly, you can use WhatsApp, Google Maps, uh, and a couple of translation apps. Of course, it'll probably expand to other things. Now, I might use this for DoorDash because I do order DoorDash pretty often since I have all that credit and sometimes I'm busy and I order something for lunch. It'll nudge you when you're like your driver's nearby. That would be good. Okay, oh no, yeah, like for that, I use that. That's basically bringing DoorDash, you know, live notification kind of to the now bar. I would take that if that, you know, if that's what it ends up doing and being, I would be okay with that. I wouldn't say no. So as long as it lets you turn stuff on or off um in you know, kind of increments of the you know, the apps, you don't have to do it, it doesn't be all or nothing. Yeah. Like if it's all or nothing, I'll probably keep it off. But if it's all, if it's if I can turn it on or off for specific apps in the specific categories, yeah, I'll go in there and customize it to my preferences. What do you think, Tori?

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Well, I I don't know. I see like two different lenses because in one lens, I'm like, I feel like this makes you want to. I also have two different lenses on my glasses. Yes, that's true. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Uh but no, it just kind of makes you like, I mean, it kind of forces people to also increase their screen time because I can see the nudges being like, ooh, like what should my phone be telling me to do next? You know, or like, you know, I teach, you know, high schoolers or young adolescents. Um, you know, if they have similar phones and they are getting nudge to like do things. Yeah. Like nudge, nudge. It's like, hey, uh, pay attention to me. Yeah. You know, hey, have you gone on whatever Facebook or whatever? Or like, here, you might want to do this. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, I mean it's gonna like increase your screen time and increase some of the things. It's like check out your Amazon cart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boom.

Leadership Changes Inside Samsung

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Get in here and check out this cart today, you know what I mean? Yeah, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

I don't really feel like that's like a feature, like, like, you know, in terms of the nudging, like, I don't think we like need that because I feel like, you know, like we go on our phones for like I I know a lot of people obviously go on their phones because they're bored, you know, too. Um, but like I feel like most people just already have their basic rinse, wash, and repeat of all right, let me scroll on Facebook for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Well, I think this is mainly tailored towards people, maybe like me, who are really busy and maybe they forget something to do. True, true, true. Um, which, but again, I mean, I already use Notion and other stuff. The reason I wouldn't want to use it is like what I see, at least on the Pixel, is a lot of times it nudges you to do something outside of the time that I want to do it. Like, I don't need to be nudged to do some work when I'm staying on the couch watching Saturday Night Live. I'm like, man, I'm trying to relax.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Yeah, I'm trying to relax. Don't bring that in the room.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

I'd be like, don't bring that in here right now, Mother Bleeper. Yeah, right. You know, and then I have to turn it off really angrily.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Like, but you know, it could be helpful. I have a you know, I had a student at the college who's like, she just keeps forgetting to like do certain things for like her classes, and like this could be something. She has a Samsung too. There you go.

Buds 4 Pro Design, Features, Case

SPEAKER_01 56:37

Yeah, if you use it in the right way, that's what I'm saying. If you're lay if you're able to turn it off on an app per app and category by category basis based on those different things I was talking about, I probably would consider using it just because you know there's certain apps where I would want it, like DoorDash or something like that. Maybe my maybe my calendar. What would be awesome actually is if it not only you could turn it on or off for specific apps, if you could manage what times you wanted to work for specific tasks and apps, um, maybe that will be something that they end up doing. I don't think we got to see that deeply because this was a leak that someone got from the latest build. Um, if you could do that and customize it down that far, then I would say yeah, because I could see it being useful for certain things, but yeah, I couldn't want it on for everything because then I get nudges and reminders about stuff that I don't want when I don't want it, and that kind of makes me just annoyed. And I'm like, let's turn all that sh off. Done with it. Now, I completely forgot about this. Two other big stories that I completely forgot about. We got to hit, and then I'll talk a little bit of hardware here at the end and Black Friday deals. Uh, one is there was this huge story about hackers um selling Samsung data online. This was reported by various uh hacking websites, and we covered this as well. Um so people were actually asking us on X, should I be worried about my data being sold online? Uh and the answer is really no if you're talking about consumer, and like if you're a consumer of Samsung consumer products, because this data is actually not data um from Samsung consumer products or accounts. Samsung is a multi-level business. We've talked about this many times. They don't just do consumer products. I mean, they do like every consumer product under the sun: phones, tablets, TVs, refrigerators, vacuum, vacuums, they do dishwashers, air purifiers, literally everything. If it's something like we put in your home, they probably pretty much if it's if it has a power outlet and it goes in your house, Samsung probably makes it microways of it. Um but they also not only do they do that, they have all these other levels of their business that are vertically integrated. We've talked about before. Samsung makes their own semiconductors, they have their own semiconductor plant where they make their own chips, like the Exynos series. They have their own plants where they make their own RAM. Samsung makes all of this stuff. They make their own batteries, they have a Samsung battery division, they make their own camera sensors, which they then don't sell to their own mobile division to get upgrades, they sell it to Chinese companies.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

All these insane things. But this Samsung data is actually from one of their subsidiary companies of Samsung called Samsung Medsun, M-E-D-I-S-O-N, and you can probably guess Medisun from the name. They manufacture medical tools and equipment and diagnostic tools and data. Yeah. Um, and so this data was actually medical data that came from some of their medical devices that people logged on their devices was logged that have been obtained by hackers and put on the internet. Oh wow. So if your data was, you know, here it includes healthcare environments, SQL tables, user and employee records, internal logs, and exported cloud directories. So not great if your health data was on here, but the chances that it is is much lower because obviously, if someone had, you know, hacked Samsung consumer accounts, that'd be a much bigger problem because there's billions of those records where these are just in the tens of thousands for this particular. Uh leak. Still not great, but if you're just a Samsung user as a Samsung phone or TV or something, chances that your data has been pwned, as they say in the industry, has not been very high. So you're probably okay. And then I forgot about this story because we talked about the fake S26 Plus AI images starting the story. This is props the biggest story of the week, and I didn't even lead with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Oh, what?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

Google found a way to reverse engineer Apple's Airdrop feature. And now Samsung and Google Quick Share on Android works with Airdrop. You can now airdrop your iPhone friends, your girlfriend. You can airdrop her photos from your Android now. Now, it only works on pixel phones right now because Google is the one who did all this engineering, but Samsung will be the first non-Google phones in line to get it, which should be in the next few weeks to month. And then you'll be able to airdrop from your Galaxy to your iPhone, uh to your friend's iPhone, your wife's iPhone, whatever. Um, this is something people wanted for a long, long time. People have been wanting this, you know, basically forever. And uh it's really awesome to finally see that Google is able to do it. Uh, a lot of people have asked me and some of our writers on X that we wrote a story about this about how or how this happened and will Apple allow this to stand or will they break it? Because they could try. Yeah, no, basically three years, four years ago, the company I use called Beeper, which I use for my messaging. I've talked about it on this show and on Android on uh YouTube before, which I put all my messaging in one uh app. Beeper actually reverse engineered iMessage and made it so that Android users could use iMessage four years ago. And Apple promptly shut that down in like a week and a half. They're like, no, thank you. They're like uh green messages forever. They're like, great job, guys uh doing that, but we're gonna have to shut you down. And they filed a lawsuit against beeper and basically in junction of relief, and then they shut it down on the server side, and that was dead in like a two or three weeks. Apple shut that down completely. Um but beeper still exists and they're a great service. It's just you can't get iMessage on Android. You can get all your other chat apps in one place, but you can't send iMessage from your Android phone without some hacking. You can still do it with a very complicated hack. Basically, you need to own a Mac computer that you're willing to use just as an iMessage server, and then you can send iMessage from your Android and Beeper will help you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah.

Real Upgrades: Buds 4 Pro Vs Phones

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

But it's not like plug and play like it was. So the question a lot of people asked us is will Apple shut down Google's attempt to now allow QuickShare to airdrop photos to iPhone? And we don't think so. And here's the reason because it seems like this whole the reason Google was able to get access to this was because Apple, as well as Google, have a lot of antitrust lawsuits over across the pond, our friends in the EU, the European Union. The European Union does not like monopolies or people, companies trying to monopolize anything. They are very anti-monopoly. They will break that stuff up. And they're always trying to target Apple and Google because they're two companies that are basically monopolies. They let them exist, but every time they can challenge them and say, hey, no, you can't do this, they will. They'll say, well, if you want to do that, you can't sell your products or you can't have Google search in the entire European Union. And of course they're not gonna do that because the European Union, basically outside of the US, is like if you can fight all the countries in the EU, it's basically like the second largest economic economy in the world, or second or third. You you know, if you're a big business, you're not gonna shut out a collection of countries that make up the second or third largest revenue drivers for your business. Madness. That'd be insane. So, you know, they have to listen to the EU. They have to take it very seriously. And they're a lot more willing to challenge Google and Apple than even the U.S. government. The US government, especially now, doesn't seem to care about doing that at all. But um, you know, the thing is, it appears that because of some of these crackdowns on Apple, that's how Google was kind of forced, uh, Apple was kind of forced by the EU to take this approach of, you know, anyone can share photos wirelessly between iPhone and other devices. So Google was able to get that access and build this tool in. I don't think Apple's gonna challenge it. I think there's gonna, I don't now do I think Apple's gonna endorse it and come out and make a commercial, like, oh, you can share your photos between your iPhone and your Android. Do it today. I don't think Tim Cook's gonna get on TV and be like, oh yeah, look at me sharing my photos from my Galaxy phone to my iPhone. That's not gonna happen because you know that Apple's not something Apple's gonna do. They're never gonna show anybody using anything other than an Apple product in their ads, and they're not gonna speak on anybody doing anything that allows their services to work on another manufacturer's phone. They don't like that. They're not gonna endorse it, but do I think they're gonna shut it down? I don't. I think there's gonna have to be they're gonna be like, oh well, we're just gonna let it ride. We're just not gonna comment. We got so if someone asks them, they're gonna be like, no comment. No comment. And be like, Mr. Tim Apple, what do you think about the uh QuickShare working with Airdrop now? No, no comment. We have no further questions, uh comments at this time. We plead the fifth. They're like, sir, this is not a court of law, no comment. Anyway, yeah, he's he's not gonna comment on it. They're not gonna make official comment and they're not gonna endorse it, but I don't think they'll shut it down. That's a crazy story, though. This is something no one thought would ever happen. The fact that so Google or Samsung or anyone would allow uh build something that would let Android use Airdrop this in photo's iPhone. Like, that's that was unheard of. Like when this came out, this news came out uh yesterday. Like, I when I saw this story go, because we have a thing where you track our stories for Sammy Guru and Asana. When I saw this come across, I was like, is that a typo? Like what the hell? Like Abnov dropped it in there. I was like, this can't be right. Like, what is what is this title? The title said breaking Android Quickshare Now works with Apple's Airdrop. I was like, he must have made something typo. Maybe Abnov was doing a little drinking. He was doing a little drinking last night and made a few mistakes when he was typing in the title into Asana. I was like, you know, it's okay. I I endorse having a few drinks on the job, but I I messaged him and I was like, hey, are you sure that's right? And he's like, Yeah, check out this Google blog post. And Google had announced that Quick Share now works with that with Airdrop. And I was like, Wow, Google. That's crazy, man. So yeah, that's that's a pretty crazy story. Uh I didn't lead with that because I was so mad about people questioning our integrity on those AI images.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

But you know Hey, I mean, we're still a news outlet.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

We are, we cover the news. Right. You know, that's what we do in this industry. That is what we do in this industry. To wrap up, I do want to say a few things about some of the hardware that I've I've been using in the last few weeks. Um, the Opel Fine X9 Pro, quickly, I want to say, oh man, Samsung really, like in terms of we've talked about it in the slab phones and this, they should be concerned about their position within Android. I know that they think that in the US there's no other competition, which is mostly true because it's just Google and them. But I mean, they they look and it's embarrassing. The OboFine X9 Pro is a really great phone. Really? And I mean, I'll be honest with you. I mean, obviously I love Samsung. I own a website called sammyguru.com with Jeff Springer, so it's pretty obvious I'm a big Samsung fan. Otherwise, I wouldn't have invested my time and built my business around Samsung coverage. But I would consider using this as my daily driver if it was officially available in the US. Now I imported this from the UK, so I'm not gonna use it as my daily driver just because a couple things. All the cell bands don't work perfectly here. They work okay, but they're not perfect. And some of the features that I want, I can't really get that one UI has.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

But I use it as my main phone for a few days, and I mean, there this phone is has a lot of things that, like you've said, Tori, the average person wants 7,000 plus milliamp hour battery. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like this phone, like I even with my heavy usage, I could not kill this phone in two full days of use. Really? I used it for two full 10-hour work days, plus the nights where I do other work, my own, like just browsing. And after two full days, took it off the charger at 7 a.m. Put it on the charger the next the next night at 11 45 or midnight, it had 21% left on the phone after two full days of work and nighttime work. That's insane. I took tons of pictures, videos, I tried to kill it, I could not kill it. Did all my regular work? That's insane. You know, the S 25 Ultra, while it's a single day phone, there's no way you're ever getting full through a second day. By the time you wake up in the morning, it's like, oh, your phone's dead for show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like it's dead for show. You're like, uh oh, turn on my phone for the morning. Oh no, it's dead. Yeah, um, so like right now, my S25 Ultra, right now it's 553, it's at 43%. So like when I go home tonight and I do some browsing, do a little work, by the time I put on the charger to 1145 or midnight, it's gonna be at like 10%, probably for sure. Because I use wireless Android out on the way home, that'll take 15%. Yeah, no, for sure. So by the time I get home, it's gonna be 25%. And I'll do some browsing and stuff in the evening after the kids go to bed, it's gonna be trained.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

Uh the camera on it is way better than the S25 Ultra 2 on the Apple Fine X9 Pro. Uh Samsung's camera just they keep not upgrading every year, and so it's embarrassingly behind. Um cameras really good. There, they partner a lot of these Chinese manufacturers partner with Hasselblod, which is Oppo, and Leica, which is Xiaomi. They all partner with these different Zeiss, which is um Vivo. They all partner with these different camera lens manufacturers to also optimize their quality and they're also putting new sensors in their phone, which the S-line doesn't have. Uh so stagnation doesn't bring greatness. If you're stagnant, it doesn't bring greatness. I mean, does this does this does this matter for the US market?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Maybe not, but for the European eventually it it will though. It will. Yeah, it will.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Because eventually, I mean, I'd be honest with you, even if people don't all go to Apple, I could see, even though right now it might be a little difficult because of the climate politically here, if we get a different administration in three years, one of these Chinese companies might finally get the idea. If Samsung keeps being like we're just the cost-cutting brand that's doing all this blah blah blah blah blah, it'd cost a lot of money for Xiaomi or Oppo or Vivo to come to the US and sell. But might they, if Samsung is just stagnant and there's all these Android fans here who don't want to go to Apple, they might. I mean, I said before I didn't think it would happen, but they might. A company like Oppo, who's already, you know, basically has a sub-brand here, which is OnePlus, Oppo might just bring their flagship brand here and say, well, we're just gonna go head to head, Samsung, just like HTC and LG did.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:32

And then they're really gonna be hurting.

Smart Rings, Comfort, Sleep Apnea

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

Yeah. I mean, the only the only real thing preventing them from all these companies from doing that is that it costs so much money to sell in the US because you've got to get FCC certifications, all this other stuff. You have to have build plants in the US, all that costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, hundreds of millions of dollars. And Samsung already has a lot of that infrastructure, obviously. And of course, the other threat is, and I think this is where what TM Row banks on, is all these companies know in the back of their mind, and this is the unfortunate thing for the consumer, it sucks for us. All these companies in China know, well, if we spend all that money and we go to the US and we try to sell, right now we have a better product. But then you're poking a sleeping bear. Samsung has the money, they have the talent to put into the RD. And so, what do you think they're gonna do if you actually spend all that money and poke the bear? They're then actually gonna get off their ass and they're gonna start doing something, and then they're gonna stomp you into the ground like they did HTC and LG. So I think that's the big threat that keeps them from doing it because they're like, if I spend all this money, which they have the money to do that, and I come to the US, even if I'm successful, then that's gonna really piss Samsung off. Oh, for sure. And then they do have the money, they have way more money than these other companies. You know, vertically integrated, they they could easily, if they wanted to, just destroy them, just like they did LG and HTC. They basically took both of them and just destroyed them over a three-year period until there was nothing left and they stopped making phones. Yep. That's what happened from the S6 to the S9. Samsung is just like, we're just gonna make the phone so good that nobody else can possibly sell phones in the Android phones in the US. But then after that, after a few years after that, there's like, well, we're just gonna quit doing anything useful. We're gonna just keep selling the same phone every year for the next however long until someone decides to challenge us. Um so I don't know. I think one of two things has to happen. One, Samsung starts losing significant market share of people who use Android and Samsung for a long time to Apple, then I think they get off their ass and start doing something.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

Um, if they see the reverse of the trend, because they want Apple people jumping this way. Yeah, yeah. If they see Samsung people jumping the other way, then they probably get off their butts and do it. Yeah, yeah. Or if one of those companies or someone else, uh player that's already in the US, starts trying to directly come for them, then they'll probably turn it up and we'll get it just sucks that it has to come to that. Like someone has to force you to give the consumers a good product. Like, I uh that's just frustrating to me. I mean, I get it from a business perspective, but it's like just give us a decent product, you know, with slight price increase if you have to, but don't just sit there and cut costs and never give any upgrades. I mean, honestly, there's really not very many US companies that could challenge them. Google could, but they're never going to, because Samsung and Google are like best friends, you know. They're like, you were my best friend, I want you around all the time. That's how that's how uh Sundar Pachai and TM Row are when they see each other. That's how they are when they see each other on the street. Matching sweaters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Stepbrothers, but that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

They take their holiday card and matching sweaters. Yeah. At JC Pennies. You'll see TM Row and Sundar Pachai. They'll have the one Sundar Pachai have his hand around TM Row. They'll be looking up. Yeah. That's that that's what basically how good of friends they are. They're they're best bros. So Google's never going to come for Samsung in the hardware business because they have an arrangement where basically Google gets to pimp all their services and software as the default on Samsung phones and return. Google doesn't step on Samsung's toes when it comes to selling crappy hardware over and over again, same stuff every year for a higher price. They're like, we won't try to really challenge you with the Pixel. We'll make the Pixel have just enough compromises so that people are like, we could need to buy the Samsung, but then you can still sell it the same garbage every year and raise the price again. Um, so basically, the summary of this podcast is we'll just summary it up, summarize it up. Maybe I'll start doing this. You can now, or at least soon, you'll be able to quick share to airdrop phones to the i uh galaxy to iPhone. Um you can already do it with a pixel. Um fake AI images are out there of the S26 Plus, and we do not endorse fake AI images, and we never did, but we still report on stuff that's happening with Samsung because that's what we do at Sami Groove. It's in the name. Yeah, it's in the name. Um the S26 Plus and S26 Base are basically phones that I probably wouldn't buy. The S26 Ultra is slightly disappointing as well, with upgrades that probably still don't charge challenge the Chinese phones, but I mean the saving grace for Samsung is One UI 8.5 is still better than any other software out there. So they got that going for them. We still love OneUI. Um the Galaxy Ring, Samsung's getting sued over the Galaxy Ring, and uh maybe the Galaxy Ring 2 will be out next year. Buds 4 Pro could be one of the biggest upgrades of 2026 for Samsung.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

Yeah, I'm I'm actually like I was this past year. I'm actually pretty excited for that.

Oura Lawsuit And Likely Outcomes

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Yeah, the buds, they've been like the flagship launch product of the launches in which they were in, which is tells you how unexciting the phones were in those corresponding launches. Like if the buds are the top product, that's just not not the best, not great news, you know. Like the phones really should be the top product, but people are like, yeah, you know what, I don't want that S26 Ultra, but those buds, though, let me get those buds though. Yeah, the fold and the flip next year could be huge upgrades again, with Samsung supposedly maybe getting rid of the crease, doing a bunch of other stuff, upgrading the camera. Basically, you know, if you want innovation and Samsung to be in the same sentence, you need to jump on the July launch, become a foldable fan, I guess. You need to either flip or fold, because if you just like a phone that doesn't do either of those things, you're not getting any upgrades. No upgrades for you. We'll go ahead and bump up the number, bump up the price, bump down the features. And that's the summary of today's Sammy Group Podcast, episode number 49. Um, we'll be back, you know, either next week or the following week, depending on what happens. Me and Tori eat too much turkey, we'll have to see what happens. Yeah. But uh pretty solid show today. It'll be show number 50. It's crazy we made a show 50. I know. You know, I thought, you know, that we would never make it to 50, but who knows? Maybe we can make it to 100. I think we can. Yeah, I think we can. I think we do it. Um, so everybody take care. Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving as well. And while you're in the middle of having a happy Thanksgiving, talking to those in-laws, you know, having those great intimate conversations about things you definitely want to talk about. Keep expanding your galaxy.